I went “camping” over Labor Day weekend, which required a long trek down country roads. When I am driving down country roads, I always have my eyes open for small cemeteries tucked away in forested areas and in between corn fields.

My dog Jolene (and June, not pictured) joined me on this cemetery journey.

I found the Old Turkey Run Cemetery (south of Wingate, IN) before crossing Turkey Run Creek on the way to the cabin. It was at the end of a very long grassy road off the main road. I wasn’t sure if I could drive my car down it and my dogs were anxious, so I decided to make a stop on the way home. I wasn’t disappointed.

Someone is really taking care of this place.“Gone Home”View of the road from the cemetery. Ignore the green dot from iPhone. It’s NOT a ghostly orb. 😉

According to Waymarking.com,

This peaceful cemetery, set back from the road, was established in 1828. The first person buried there was Mary Westfall, her remains moved there, from their original place of interment, when the new Turkey Run church and cemetery was established there. The church was replaced by a new building, close to the town of Wingate, then called Pleasant Hill, in 1852. The church was renamed to Pleasant Hill Christian Church, at that time. The original location of the church, on the cemetery grounds, is marked by a stone plaque, in the ground, and four boulders.

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It has been a stressful year so far and now, more than ever, I’m counting down the days until Halloween. My current self-care method is creating short-lived Halloween celebrations in between my mundane work hours and depressing news. The following are some suggestions for what I call “Halloween self-care,” or ways to cheer yourself up with the magic of Halloween.

Every year, Jezebel asks their readers to share their true scary stories in the comments. I have links to every year on my Resources page (I recommend starting with the early years), and I have also shared a lot of my favorites in my old Weekly Yuputka series.

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This past week, I have been filling my commonplace book with eclipse folklore, my favorite #FolkloreThursday tweets, creepy dolls, and some new ghost stories. I had an especially fun time writing about The Stone-Throwing Devil of Great Island, New Hampshire.

George Walton, a wealthy landowner, and his family were tormented by an invisible force from May to August in 1682.

One Sunday night in May (about 10 PM), the Walton household heard loud pounding on their roof. George and several others went outside to investigate, only finding that the fence gate was taken off its hinges. Then, they were pelted by stones thrown by an unseen source. After running back inside, they witnessed rocks being thrown at the window and falling through the ceiling. This went on for several hours.

The next day, servants noticed there were many objects missing from the house. During their investigation, they found some of the household objects in the yard and other odd places. Stones also continued to drop from the ceiling and down the chimney. A black cat was seen in the orchard and everyone started to speculate it could be witchcraft.

That night the stone throwing continued. A hand was even seen thrusting out from a hall window and dropping stones on the porch.

Then, on June 28th, the stone throwing got intense. During supper, rocks fell onto the family while they ate. The dining table was smashed into pieces.

The rock throwing continued and sometimes stones were up to 30 pounds! George Walton was pelted by so many stones that he suffered from chronic pain the rest of his life.

The witch suspected of this aggressive behavior? It was an elderly neighbor woman that lost land during a feud with George Walton. After he took her land, she was heard saying he would “never enjoy that piece of Ground.” George and company believed this was clearly a curse.

I drew some spilled urine.

So, George Walton though he’d fight witchcraft with witchcraft. With the guidance of a witch expert, George decided to cast a spell on his neighbor. This involved boiling urine and crooked pins in a pot. Before the pot could boil, though, a rock fell from the ceiling and knocked the pot’s contents all over the floor. He tried it again; more spilled urine. Then the handles fell off and the pot split into pieces.

The stone throwing continued.

George ended up lodging a complaint against his neighbor with the council in Portsmouth. The council’s decision is unknown. We do know George was hit by rocks on the way to the hearing.

This story is documented by various sources, including a first-hand account by a Richard Chamberlain, which you can read HERE.

During my research, I learned the term lithoboly or a mysterious hail or rain of stones that pelt victims and property and is usually caused by witchcraft or demons. I added the term to my glossary page for future reference. Side note: you might keep a glossary in the back of your commonplace book.

Commonplace book exercise for this week: Find a historical account of someone allegedly attacked by witchcraft. Maybe you might find some accounts on archive.org? Like the story I shared above? You might read and write about The Bell Witch.

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I have been thoroughly engrossed with the 1980 book Indiana Folklore: A Reader from Indiana University Press (edited by Linda Dégh). In this book, I came across the most suspenseful ghost story and just had to share it.

Three teenage boys stumbled across a haunted house on their way to another friend’s house. The boys began poking fun at each other, saying the other two were not brave enough to go inside. Eventually, after the teasing had died down, they agreed to spend the night in the haunted house together. The next night, the boys packed a lantern, bed-rolls, soft drinks, and a riffle and walked towards the house.

While making themselves (somewhat) comfortable in the haunted house, they heard a noise downstairs. The sound was a loud scratching noise, like something was being dragged across a cement floor.

The teenagers headed downstairs with their rifle and lantern. They heard the noise coming from the furthest corner of the room. The boy with the lantern turned his light towards the sound and saw a coffin, standing and scooting itself unassisted across the floor. The coffin kept getting closer and closer. And closer. The coffin after some time was three feet away from the boys. One of the boys decided to stop this scary coffin.

Can you guess how he stopped the coffin?

Well, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a Smith Brothers cough drop and took it; and he stopped that COFFINfor the time being, so the boys were saved.

Get it? 🙂

Italics are direct quotes (because I didn’t want to ruin the pun) and the story was shared in the chapter “The Walking Coffin” by William M. Clements. // Photo by Ksenia Makagonova on Unsplash

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Y’all, I’m back with my commonplace book and ready to do some weekly updates…staring now!

My commonplace book has been filled recently with a lot of miscellaneous information, tiny bits I just had to capture. I usually come across this information on Twitter. Articles that have caught my eye on Twitter lately include:

#FolkloreThursday on Twitter has also been a source of knowledge and community for me. Each Thursday folklore scholars and lovers share their favorite pieces of folklore in 140 characters or less. I like to screenshot my favorite tweets, print them, and glue them into my commonplace book.

I have also done some research on making smudge sticks. I had so much sage in my garden and thought purifying my space would put it to good use. I still have so much to learn about the origins of smudging and its complexities (colors, herbs to use, uses across cultures, etc). The following links have only started this current research project.

To understand the protocol means you have to learn something about aboriginal people. So in a sense the medicines are working in a kind way, saying ‘learn about me and we can respect each other and we can walk together’ – Cat Criger, aboriginal elder-in-residence at the University of Toronto

Commonplace book exercise for this week: Join #FolkloreThursday this Thursday and write down (or copy/paste) some of your favorite tweets!

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Today I wanted to share another piece of Indiana folklore: the chain on the tombstone.

In Bonds Chapel Cemetery (Orange County, Indiana) sits a gravestone that reads “Floyd E. Pruett, 1894-1920.” On the side of the stone is the ghostly appearance of a chain. Many argue the chain developed over time and the number of links continue to grow in number. The chain has been the topic of speculation for quite some time.

Folklore scholar William M. Clements interviewed Terry, an “expert” on this tombstone, in 1968. Terry explained the tombstone’s unusual appearance.

Well, the tombstone itself isn’t unusual. I mean, it’s a small tombstone; but when you get up close, you can see what appears to be a chain. And small links of a chain look maybe engraved in the tombstone to form a cross […] sometimes there’ll be seven or eight; sometimes there’ll be up to fifteen or sixteen. And, well nobody knows why it changes. Some people think maybe it’s the weather and something in the stone itself; and other people just think it’s psy…(whistle) supernatural. (from Indiana Folklore: A Reader, 1980)

A chain, huh? According to S.E. Schlosser (Spooky Indiana, 2012), legend says Pruett died by a cursed chain. He had killed his wife with a logger chain (he was a logger) and, before her dying breathe, she put a curse on her husband. A few days later, a chain broke loose from a timber wagon, whipped in the air, and snapped the man’s neck. Some legends say it was the same chain he used to kills his wife. If you touch the chain today, you will be killed by a chain. This is just one of many versions of the story, though.

For example, a more romantic version has been posted on hauntedplaces.org. A user writes:

He was killed in battle, and his girlfriend stood across the road, watching his burial from afar. Some say her ghost to this day still awaits his return. The chain is said to grow [edited from groe] one link longer every year, symbolizing her growing love for him, and it is said to glow at night. An apparition in a black dress can be seen standing on the other side of the road.

But, Clements interviewed a grocer who remembered Pruett died from tuberculosis, and that the mysterious chain was probably the result of a rusty chain that had come in contact with the stone in the quarry. Another informant gave a similar explanation for the chain mark and Pruett’s death.

Clements concluded that “a legend has been created among the youth of several southern Indiana counties in order to explain a physical phenomenon as well as to provide a supernatural ‘thrill’ as an escape from boredom” (264).

Pruett most definitely died of usual circumstances and was unfortunately given an unusual gravestone. How did the story start? I don’t know. It is interesting to see the various explanations for the chain, from the believable to the wild. But, let us remember to see past the legend and acknowledge he is a person.

Want to hear more locals (of the past) tell their version of the story? Read more here.

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What version of Bloody Mary were you told as a child? There’s Mary. There’s a mirror. There’s the risk of a bloody end. But, what words did you utter (and how many times)? What origin story were you told? Who was the real Bloody Mary? Mary Worth? Mary Weatherby? Mary Worthington? Mary Lou?

The ritual and biography of Bloody Mary has variations, and my favorite origin story begins at a farm in Lake County, Indiana with a young girl named Mary Whales.

Sometime during the 19th Century, there lived a belligerent farmer named Old Man Whales. Old Man Whales supplemented his farm income by catching and selling runaway slaves. An evil man, he only loved himself and his wife Virginia.

This story is adapted from S.E. Schlosser’s Spooky Indiana. This is my favorite book on Indiana folklore and hauntings. Highly recommend: beautiful writing style and illustrations.

After the Civil War, Old Man Whales’ life crumbled around him. He lost income from his nefarious business and his wife died during childbirth.

But, Virginia left a beautiful gift on this earth: Mary.

Old Man Whales hated Mary. She represented the cause of Virginia’s death. Mary, in blond curls and dressed in dirty rags, was kind and hardworking. While her dad drank himself to sleep, she did most of the housekeeping and chores. The only thing that brought her happiness were books. Books allowed her to escape that small farm in Lake County.

One night, Old Man Whales came home especially drunk and angry. He marched into Mary’s room while she slept and stabbed her to death with the same knife he used to slaughter pigs. Her screams could not save her. He left her bloody body in the bed with her head nearly severed. He went to bed, proud of his work.

The next morning, Old Man Whales took her body and buried her in the basement. He thought it was the last he would see of his daughter. As these things go, it would not be.

Two nights later, Old Man Whales entered the house after doing his evening chores. Standing in the kitchen was Mary, smiling through a “knife-split mouth.” Her head dangled off her neck and pool of blood surrounded her feet. “Ffffaaaatttthhherrr…” she hissed, running towards him. He ran out of the house and spent the night in the barn.

The next day, Old Man Whales returned to the house and saw no signs of last night’s bloody incident. He blamed the alcohol and went about his life. A week later, as he read the newspaper next to the fire, Mary appeared again. She sat across the room from him, with her dress covered in blood and head moving about. She flew towards him, clutching knitting needles like knives. Old Man Whales ran out of the house and into the barn. He looked at his back and his shirt was bloody with knife-like gashes.

For days, Old Man Whales slept in the barn, but finally convinced himself that the image of his murdered daughter was just the whiskey. He decided to go back into the house one morning, clean up, and head into town.

When he looked into the mirror to start shaving, a face was peering back at him. Flesh fell from her pale face and through her sharp teeth Mary said, “Ffffaaaatttthhherrr.” Using her long nails she reached through the mirror and slapped Old Man Whales twice across the face. He fled again to the barn.

Old Man Whales thought he was safe in the barn, but heard a voice behind him: “”Ffffaaaatttthhherrr.” After he turned, she pointed to a noose hanging in the rafters. He began to climb up the ladder. The noose looked so welcoming…

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As some of you know, I keep a commonplace book and it is the very reason I started this blog. For those of you that are unfamiliar with the concept or would like to learn more, I wrote about the brief history and use of commonplace books in Dirge Magazine.

I consider myself a lifelong learner and I am, like all of us living in a digital world, constantly bombarded with interesting information. The commonplace book provides a way to capture and reflect on the (spooky) things I learn everyday. My commonplace book is strictly about the occult, so I thought I might share what I’m writing about in it on the blog each week (Update: I know, I have not done so. But, expect it to pick up early August).

This week, I filled my commonplace book with Japanese spirits that cause infection and diseases.

Long ago in Japan, human illness was caused by tiny creatures that crawled into your body and wreaked havoc. According to one source I found, there was a book written in 1568 titled Harikikigaki (author unknown), which delineated 63 of these types of creatures and ways to fight them off with herbal remedies.

Another source and a favorite of mine provided details on these types of spirits (although not necessarily outlined in the book mentioned above). Yokai.com is an online encyclopedia on Japanese ghosts and demons with beautiful illustrations and detailed entries. You can easily get lost in there for hours.

I filled my commonplace book with notes from this site, and wanted to share the most interesting ghost disease I came across.

So, the GYŌCHŪ is a intestinal worm with six arms and red tongues. It is sexually transmitted and lives and breeds in the host’s sex organs. It reproduces on Kōshin night (from the ancient Kōshin religion), which occurs every 60 days. On these nights, the Gyōchū left the bodies of their hosts to visit the King of Hell (and Judge of the Damned). These worms were very gossipy and would tell the King all their host’s sins. The King of Hell would then punish hosts for their sins. To avoid having this gossipy worm in your body: don’t have sex on holy nights.

Commonplace book exercise for this week: Check out Yokai.com and take some notes on some of your favorite yokai.

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According to writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton, “Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.” Imagine all the souls touched and all the spirits created in the hearts of fans of famous musicians. And, while their corporal bodies may lie underground (or in the the winds of Joshua Tree), their music is still touching new generations of souls and their sightings are constantly on repeat. The following are famous musicians that supposedly still walk the earth. While some of the stories are nonsensical, they speak to our attachment to music and our the immortality of musical legends.

Buddy Holly

On February 3, 1959, a plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson crashed into a cornfield near Mason City, Iowa. The three men and pilot died instantly. Visitors to the crash site today have reported shadowy figures in the distance and the sound of music. If you walk towards the music, the shadows disappear.

Elvis

The ghost of Elvis is said to haunt various locations, including:

Old RCA Recording Studios (Tennessee). People have reported weird noises coming out of sound equipment, lights blowing out, objects being moved, and the apparition of The King himself.

Room 1016 of the Knickerbocker Hotel (Hollywood). Elvis stayed here when he filmed movies. Visitors and staff attribute the eerily cold room to his spirit.

Las Vegas Hilton. People have seen his spirit in the penthouse, the basement where he hung out with his band, and the elevator he used to avoid screaming fans.

The Ryman Auditorium (Nashville). Lisa Marie Presley claims she heard her father, Elvis, while there. After a performance at the theatre she went into her dressing room. The door was stuck and she could not get it open. Suddenly, she heard the distinct laugh of her father and the door opened.

Mama Cass Elliot

Fictional ghostbuster Dan Aykroyd believed the ghost of Mama Cass, of The Mamas & the Papas, haunted his previous house. She also had owned the house at some point and it served as the rehearsal location for California Dreaming. He says a poltergeist got into bed with him, the Stairmaster was turned on, and jewelry was moved around on the dresser.

Kurt Cobain

Listen, a lot of people would love to kiss Kurt Cobain. A 20-something bar manager from Essex, England claims to have shared a digital kiss with Kurt Cobain in 2000. When browsing the internet late night, Kurt Cobain began to talk to the bar manager through her Compax Presario laptop and asked for a kiss. After an intimate kiss (y’all, I don’t know the logistics), her laptop broke and her digital, otherworldly romance with Cobain ended. I’m calling a big “nah” on this story; just some steamy fan fiction.

Eddie Hinton

The ghost of Eddie Hinton is said to haunt the famous recording studio Muscle Shoals in Alabama. From 1967 to 1971, Hinton played in the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section on records for artists such as Aretha Franklin, Elvis, and Otis Redding. People have reported the apparition of a man in a blue suit that many believe is Hinton, because he was buried in a blue suit. Musicians have also had unexplained equipment malfunctions.

Whitney Houston

The bond between child and parent can sometimes be complicated by, but not broken by, death. Whitney Houston passed when her daughter Bobbi Kristina was only 19. In an interview with Oprah, Bobbi Kristina said, “Throughout the house, lights turn on and off, and I’m like, ‘mum, what are you doing?’ I can still laugh with her and still talk to her. I can hear her voice telling me to ‘keep moving, baby, I’ve got you’. I can always feel her with me.”

John Lennon

John Lennon has been seen around The Dakota in Manhattan, his home and the site of his death in 1980. Three years after his death Joey Harrow (musician) and Amanda Moores (writer) spotted Lennon near the location he was shot. He was surrounded by an eerie light. They were going to approach him, but the look on his face seemed to say “don’t come near me.” Yoko Ono also reported seeing Lennon sitting at a white piano at The Dakota. He said to her, “Don’t be afraid. I am still with you.” Side note: Before his death, John Lennon reported seeing a Crying Lady roaming the halls of The Dakota (it has quite the haunted history).

Another number of encounters happened with his old band mates. In 1995, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney were in the studio recording “Free As A Bird.” Paul commented that he felt Lennon’s presence in the room: “There were a lot of strange goings-on in the studio—noises that shouldn’t have been and equipment doing all manner of weird things.” Later during a photo shoot for the album, a white peacock appeared from a neighboring yard. Paul felt this was the spirit of John Lennon coming to hang out to complete the album. He may have even made his presence known on the album itself. According to Paul: “We put one of those spoof backwards recordings on the end of the single for a laugh, to give all those Beatles nuts something to do […] Then we were listening to the finished single in the studio one night, and it gets to the end, and it goes ‘zzzwrk ngggwaaahh jooohn lennnnon qwwwrk.’ I swear to God” (Source).

Liberace

In the 80s, Liberace opened a restaurant off the Vegas strip called Liberace’s Tivoli Gardens (later changed to Carluccio’s Tivoli Gardens). Paranormal activity at the restaurant includes: cold spots near his piano, faucets turning on and off, unexplainable yellow mists in photographs, and bottles falling off shelves. Could this be the ghost of Liberace? I think this story needs more rhinestones before I can verify.

Jim Morrison

In 1997, rock historian Brett Meisner took a picture in front of Jim Morrison’s grave at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris. It was not until 2002 that he noticed a figure standing behind him: Jim Morrison? The ghost photo has been deemed “unexplainable” by researchers. What do you think?

Meisner says he regrets visiting the cemetery, because things have been weird ever since. After the picture was taken, his marriage fell apart and his friend died of an overdose. He has also been approached by people who claim to be haunted by Morrison: “At first it was sort of interesting to see how many people felt a spiritual bond with Jim and the photo, but now the whole vibe seems negative” (Source).

Gram Parsons

The story of Gram Parsons’ death and burial is already pretty legendary. Parsons, of The Flying Burrito Brothers, overdosed while staying at Joshua Tree Inn in the California desert. His family wanted his body returned to Louisiana, but his manager and best friend Phil Kaufman knew otherwise. Kaufman says Parsons wanted his body burned on a funeral pyre in Joshua Tree. Kaufman and company stole Parsons’ body from LAX and performed the ritual he wanted (they were arrested, but fined only $750).

Sid Vicious

The historic Hotel Chelsea in New York has been a temporary home for many creative thinkers, artists, musicians, writers, designers since being build in the 1880s (Tennessee Williams, Mark Twain, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohenx, Jack Kerouac, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Dylan, and many more). There have been several notable deaths at this location too: poet Dylan Thomas (Room 206 in 1953), writer Charles R. Jackson (1968), and Nancy Spungen (Room 100 in 1978).

Nancy was a figure of the 1970s punk rock scene and the girlfriend of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious. Their relationship was full of excessive drug use and domestic abuse so, when she was found stabbed to death at The Chelsea, many believed Sid killed Nancy. He was arrested and charged with second degree murder, but died of an overdose while out on bail. Sid and Nancy are both said to haunt The Chelsea. In particular, people have seen Sid in the elevator.

Hank Williams

Country legend Hank Williams haunts the famous Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN. Staff have reported Williams hanging out backstage and a mysterious white mist on stage. Is Hank still playing music in the afterlife?

The legend of Williams’ ghost has also inspired two major country hits — David Allan Coe ’s “The Ride” (1983) and Alan Jackson ’s “Midnight in Montgomery” (1992) — so it’s not surprising that reported sightings are not limited to Nashville. Williams is also said to haunt the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, Tenn., where he spent his last night prior to dying in the back seat of a car while being driven to Canton, Ohio for a concert on Jan. 1, 1953. Williams’ ghost has been reportedly seen in private homes in Tennessee and Alabama, as well as various honky-tonks throughout the South.

If you could see the ghost of a famous musician, which one would you want to see? Let me know in the comments!

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My birthday is this Sunday (June 11th). Honestly, I am pretty stressed about other things and it’s summer (the worst season of all), so I’m very whatever about my birthday. I thought giving away one of my favorite books would cheer this birthday girl right up!

I am giving away a fresh copy of Colin Dickey’s Ghostland, which is the book I wish I wrote. According to Amazon:

An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country’s most infamously haunted places—and deep into the dark side of our history.

NPR also named it one of its Great Reads of 2016! I named it one of my Top Ten, which is just as prestigious.